JULY 02 THE JESUS QUESTIONS JQ#21 “What do you think about fish, taxes, lost sheep, forgiveness, and your fellow servants?” (Matthew 17:25, 18:12,33)

 

JULY 02  THE JESUS QUESTIONS  JQ#21  

“What do you think about fish, taxes, lost sheep, 

forgiveness, and your fellow servants?” (Matthew 17:25, 18:12,33)

LIVING FOR JESUS  Daily Prayer   

JESUS, forgive me for all the time that I have spent worrying 

about the things of the world that have no impact on my spiritual well being. 

Lord You have demonstrated to me time and time again 

the Faithfulness of the Father to Provide everything we need

 to live a Holy life and yet we succumb to the flesh 

and seek to live a “worldly” life 

and when we look to things of this world to give us happiness

 we are always disappointed. 

Lord Jesus You have never disappointed us 

and the Father has never failed us

 in any way so why 

Lord do we insist on holding on so tight to that which disappoints us?

 Lord I pray for discernment to know when I am letting myself drift back

 into the concerns of the world which is always in a direction away from You,

 for when we finally realize we are adrift in the sea of worries 

that we are in a boat without a paddle 

and that Lord is a sinking feeling! 

So Lord, open my spiritual eyes so that I can see my way back

 to the course you have set for me and I will rely not on my ability

 to row my own boat but on Your Promise

 to never leave us nor forsake us!!!    

AMEN

THE JESUS QUESTIONS

Jesus never lets an opportunity to Teach “satellite” Lessons go to waste

 as He seizes every opportunity to reveal several 

Truths of God

 to us just by asking a Question that makes us stop and “think” 

about the world around us, and when we have to use our 

God-given intellect to understand our own individual lives 

we learn that God has equipped us with two invaluable tools 

with which we can use to work our way through all our daily problems;

 

God’s Tool #1 is our “Free Will”

 which is the characteristic we possess that is most similar to the 

“image” of God 

in that with our

 Free Will Gift from God 

we can see that our future can be influenced by the

 “Choices” 

we make using that Free Will which is ours and ours alone.

 By giving us Free Will and making us live with the 

“Consequences” of our “Choices”  God has given us the “Power”

 to influence both our future and our past 

and we cannot defer that Power to another entity, 

we must exercise our Free Will and demonstrate our 

God-given responsibility of self-sufficiency by using only our God-given abilities. 

God’s Tool #2 is our “God-given Intellect” 

which we must use in conjunction with 

God’s Tool #1 our Free Will to make Godly-decisions 

that will affect our “Spiritual Well Being” 

thereby influencing our eternal destiny. 

If we abuse our Free Will by not using our God-given Intellect 

then we are in reality going against God’s Will for our lives 

and going against God is NEVER a good thing 

for the path away from God leads to the destruction of our soul,

 and that can never be considered a good thing. 

We see Jesus telling Peter to stop and use his God-given intellect

 to “observe” the “physical” world and make “Spiritual” sense 

out of our day-to-day lives when Jesus asked back-to-back Questions 

“What do you think, Simon? From whom do the kings of the earth

 take customs or taxes, from their sons or from strangers?”

 [JQ#21a & b] (Matthew 17:25) 

Peter now has to use his God-given intellect at the insistence of God Himself

 because Peter is standing before God in the form of the “Son”

 knowing that the Question Jesus is asking Peter is because

 of a question Peter was going to ask Jesus. 

By Jesus “anticipating” what Peter was going to ask and “preventing”

 Peter from asking it, Peter now knows that 

Jesus is God because only God knows 

what we need before we even ask! 

Peter also knows that by Jesus asking the Question about where

 “…do the kings of the earth take customs or taxes…” 

that Jesus knows everything about him 

and now Jesus is instructing Peter to stop and 

“think” 

— Peter will find out that he already knows the “answer” 

to the Jesus Question but like us, we know the Truth of God 

but need instructions on how to properly apply that God-given knowledge

 to living our daily lives. 

Peter gave a one word answer to the tax collectors when he said

 “Yes” to their question about paying the temple tax 

and now Peter gives a two word answer to Jesus 

when Jesus asks Peter about

 “the kings of the earth” collecting taxes 

as Peter responds to Jesus 

“From Strangers” (Matthew 17:26). 

Jesus demonstrated to Peter that Peter has all the answers

 (consider that Peter got both answers correct 

and only had to use three words to answer two questions)

 if he stops and uses his God-given intellect to “think” 

— but what we all must learn from Jesus is how to incorporate the

 Truth of God 

with our daily lives. 

Jesus demonstrated that He is God by then performing 

the miracle of the fish and the coin through the daily life of Peter

 when Jesus sent Peter fishing. 

It was only when Peter obeyed God that the miracle occurred 

because Peter had to first cast his net in “Faith” 

in order to pull up fish in his net — 

this was an activity Peter performed thousand of times before

 but this time Peter was following God’s instructions 

and the results was the resolution of Peter’s problem with taxes! 

Only God can take our daily lives and solve our problems

 by our listening to Him and simply keep doing our day-to-day tasks because 

God chooses to work His Miracles through us 

while we go about living daily for Him 

— can’t you see the Glory of God in your daily life 

or do you need to stop and 

“Think” about it from God’s Perspective?